Big Shot's Funeral is a 2001 Chinese

Cinema of China

The Chinese-language cinema has three distinct historical threads: Cinema of Hong Kong, Cinema of China, and Cinema of Taiwan. Since 1949 the cinema of mainland China has operated under restrictions imposed by the Communist Party of China's State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television and...

 comedy film directed by Feng Xiaogang

Feng Xiaogang

Feng Xiaogang , in is a Chinese film director. He is famous in China as being perhaps the most successful "commercialized" filmmaker whose comedy films do consistently well in the box office, although Feng has attempted to break out from that mold by making drama or period drama films...

.

The film stars Donald Sutherland

Donald Sutherland

Donald McNichol Sutherland, OC is a Canadian actor with a film career spanning nearly 50 years. Some of Sutherland's more notable movie roles included offbeat warriors in such war movies as The Dirty Dozen, , MASH , and Kelly's Heroes , as well as in such popular films as Klute, Invasion of the...

, Ge You

Ge You

Ge You is an acclaimed Mainland Chinese actor. A native of Beijing, he is considered by many to be one of the most recognizable acting personalities in the Mainland...

, and Rosamund Kwan

Rosamund Kwan

Rosamund Kwan Chi-lam is a Chinese actress born in Hong Kong with ancestry in Shenyang, Liaoning in China on her father's side and from Shanghai on her mother's side. She is the daughter of Shaw Brothers star Kwan Shan and actress Cheung Bing Sai...

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Plot

World renowned American film director Rob Tyler (played by Donald Sutherland) is shooting a remake of The Last Emperor

The Last Emperor

The Last Emperor is a 1987 biopic about the life of Puyi, the last Emperor of China, whose autobiography was the basis for the screenplay written by Mark Peploe and Bernardo Bertolucci. Independently produced by Jeremy Thomas, it was directed by Bertolucci and released in 1987 by Columbia Pictures...

in Beijing

Beijing

Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

, the Forbidden City

Forbidden City

The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It is located in the middle of Beijing, China, and now houses the Palace Museum...

. The director's assistant Lucy, a Chinese American

Chinese American

Chinese Americans represent Americans of Chinese descent. Chinese Americans constitute one group of overseas Chinese and also a subgroup of East Asian Americans, which is further a subgroup of Asian Americans...

 (Rosamund Kwan), hires a Beijing cameraman named YoYo (Ge You) to shoot a "making of" documentary about Tyler's remake. The director soon discovers he has ailing health and is booted by the film's producer from the shoot. After witnessing a Chinese funeral for the elderly, Tyler tells YoYo he wants to have a similar "comedy funeral". Soon afterwards the American director falls into a coma

Coma

In medicine, a coma is a state of unconsciousness, lasting more than 6 hours in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light or sound, lacks a normal sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. A person in a state of coma is described as...

. YoYo is officially allowed to plan Tyler's funeral and he soon enlists the help of a businessman friend to attract as many sponsors as the funeral process would allow.